Thoughts on Good Friday (not necessarily all my own :)

This Good Friday feels different. It is on the tail end of a week of student teaching - something that makes me quite introspective when the day is over. And mopey.

This Good Friday was different because I didn't expect to get hit with the weight of it when I did. I was having a selfish afternoon. I wasn't really preparing my heart for this weekend. I didn't participate in Lent.

I am sleep deprived though. And that does help take things up a notch. ha. 


Anyways. Reflections.

We watched part of the Passion in Missional Community this week. It is a movie that never fails to make me outright weep so I'm not too keen on watching it regularly.

As I watched, I was struck by two things. First - when the characters look at Jesus, they see themselves for who they really are. Jesus is tough to look at sometimes. He brings us to the truth of our nature as human beings. He is one of us in that he is the Son of Man, but he is fully God in human flesh. He is not "tame", nor does he always say what we him to say. His statement of "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." on the cross is so telling. We do not know the depth of our sin until we are confronted with holiness. That statement - we know not what we do....All have sinned and fall short. The basest desire of our hearts is for our own selfish gains above all else.

We would have betrayed him for less than 30 pieces of silver. We would have denied him many more times than 3. When we watch Judas and Peter and their interactions with Jesus, we see ourselves and we see the nature of man.

My second thought is sparked by a Desiring God post I saw here: Recovering a Theology of Martyrdom.
Jesus's love is not always evident to me. I don't know why I overlook it. I think I prefer to keep an image of Christ in my head as this emotionally detached figure head who nobly goes to his death because he knows that its going to to all work out in the end. The porcelain Jesus figurine on the cross that doesn't feel as men feel. But no - Jesus was fully man and had emotions like me. He felt pain. He knew the despair of true loneliness. He knew the fear of his impending fate. He wrestled with every human emotion.

But he is God. He can feel all our emotion. He knows the pain of loneliness and He knows what it is to choose God's glory over his own comfort. He knew what awaited him and felt the emotions that you and I would feel when looking at a horrible death and he chose it willingly. And why?

Because he loves us. He does not call curses down upon the men who are nailing him to the tree. He heals the man whose ear was cut off in the garden as they are trying to arrest him. He asks God to forgive us.

Jesus loved us. He is not some deity far from us who is going through the ritual motions to redeem us. He loves us and hates our sin. He loved us as we killed him. He loved us when he died the death we deserve.